Hey there people. It’s been a while, hasn’t it. Losing my leg, nearly dying, having to move home and adjust to a new way of life! However, I want to get back to writing, because it’s what I love to do. So before we head into a quick review of a remaster of an old favourite of mine, please do bear with me as there may be many types and mistakes in here, as I get back into a groove.
Anyway…
Back when I first got a Spectrum, I remember having Operation Wolf, Treasure Island Dizzy, Seymour Goes to Hollywood, Colin the Cleaner and another game that at the time I found really difficult to play, but loved all the same. That was Head Over Heels.
An isometric puzzle adventure, where you control two characters, Head and Heels. You use their unique abilities to navigates the various puzzle rooms to move through and complete the game. Six year old Bradley didn’t understand it, never got very far and failed almost every single time. But also, xix year old Bradley would happily load up the tape and play it nigh on every single day.
It was a game that just felt special to me. Hell I suppose now you would say it was ahead of its time in some ways. The dual characters, the scale of the game felt massive at the time. I think it was that and Spy vs Spy that to me were something beyond what I could cope with.
This 2025 deluxe release pretty much leaves the original game in tact, with some QoL improvements that make it playable today, but don’t mess with the core game on little bit. The 8-bit visuals still retain all the charm, but looks cleaner. As someone who only had this on a Spectrum, this is what I wanted it to look like, rather than the way the Speccy handled multi-layered graphics at the time.
I remember playing via an emulator a number of years back and it just felt odd, to the other QoL is in how ther controls have been updated to keep the game feeling pure, but working wonderfully well on a modern system. Working out of the box perfectly on a Steam Deck is great.
Whilst this retains the original game, there is also more added, including more worlds, levels, chickens (for some reason), etc. It feels like a game that has finally able to embody the vision of the original without the constraints of the hardware it originally released on.
I’m so happy that the devs decided to keep the original look and not ‘modernise’ the visuals style at all. Because I honestly think Head Over Heels would lose a lot of what made it so charming by having HD graphics and ‘better’ movement.
This is a great example of how to bring an all time retro classic back for modern systems. Fingers crossed it is the start of many and we get the Seymour, Dizzy and Colin the Cleaners collections soon!
